A Thaivisa reporter leaving the country early Thursday morning reported huge queues after midnight. Only about half of the desks were manned as the queues snaked around the area causing bottlenecks at the downward escalators.

Though it seemed that those who were present had been told to speed up their act.

Our reporter said: "I timed the immigration officers and the great majority of people were being dealt with in 20 to 40 seconds each which seemed an improvement.

"But when someone came along who took a few minutes or needed an extra inquiry before getting stamped out the queue grew and grew as a result as there were so few officers present.

On one side of the escalators, only two officers were at work - and they were snowed under.

"Having lived in Thailand for 35 years I can say this was the longest I have ever waited to be stamped out of the kingdom".

"It was interesting to note that the frustrated officer who dealt with me barked "rew rew, hurry up" to the next foreign tourist in line.

Earlier visitor Jerome Taylor posted on his Twitter @JeromeTaylor that there were "insanely long queues" in the afternoon commenting that this was not what tourists wanted after long and tiring flights to Thailand.